Push for jail study has some in Billerica hopeful

BOSTON -- As Billerica braces for the $37 million expansion plan at the Middlesex House of Correction, residents may have gotten good news on Wednesday.

Some local officials reacted positively to Wednesday's hearing that called for a new jail in southern Middlesex County to relieve Billerica of potentially violent detainees. However, other local officials, including anti-expansion petitioner Selectman George Simolaris, remain skeptical about how long the pretrial detainees will be in town.

A bill filed by state Sen. Ken Donnelly calls for the creation of a special commission to evaluate potential sites for a new jail in southern Middlesex County to replace the jail at the soon-to-be-closed Edward J. Sullivan Courthouse in Cambridge.

"We need to bring the jail back to where it belongs," said Donnelly, D-Arlington. "We're concerned of the expansion in Billerica, so we want to make sure this is done in the south and done right."

State Rep. Marc Lombardo, R-Billerica, testified in favor of Donnelly's bill at Wednesday's hearing in front of the Joint Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight. Lombardo said he was testifying on behalf of Billerica, a community that has been hesitant to accept hundreds of pretrial detainees.

"I'm 100 percent in support of this," Lombardo said of the bill. "This ensures the commonwealth knows that we want these plans to indeed be temporary, and we can get the state moving to find a new location as soon as possible.

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Middlesex Sheriff Peter Koutoujian, who's running for Congress, also testified in support of the legislation. He said the bill received a favorable reaction at the hearing.

Koutoujian explained the importance of building a jail in the southern part of the county. When the detainees are in the north, he said, there are problems with transporting them to court, affecting the budget, court system and public safety.

"The more time detainees are outside the facility, there is more of a security risk," Koutoujian said. "If it was built tomorrow, I'd be ready to move tomorrow."

The $37 million expansion plan at Billerica's House of Correction is to build a two-story, prefabricated concrete pod with 256 beds and a one-story dormitory with 240 beds.

The additional 496 beds are temporary, Koutoujian said. He stressed that the presence of pretrial detainees in Billerica will be temporary until officials find a suitable 5-acre site to build the Southern Middlesex Justice Center. The Billerica expansion has a projected completion date of April 30, 2014.

The $37 million expansion facility will still be utilized once the detainees move out of Billerica, Koutoujian said. Some of the buildings are old and falling apart, so the existing inmate population will end up in the expansion, he said.

But Simolaris is not convinced that the expansion plan will be temporary. Simolaris, who gained attention last fall when he led the petition charge against a $14 million Town Common redevelopment project, launched a petition in late June to stop the jail expansion. He wants residents to sign the petition and let Gov. Deval Patrick "know how we feel."

On Wednesday, he was happy about the legislation but still concerned on how long the detainees will be there.

"Instead of all these studies, why don't they start building it right now?" Simolaris said. "The inmates might be there for a while, if not permanently."

Selectman Andrew Deslaurier also said it's tough to get excited about a hearing because "it takes a while for anything" at the state level. He said the hearing is a hopeful sign, but he emphasized it's still a long way to go.

Koutoujian said he hopes the bill gets a favorable recommendation from the committee, creating a commission that would bring a "faster and more inclusive process to get back down to the south." It's still too early to identify potential sites for a new jail, he said.

He added that it's good to be part of a cooperative and bipartisan effort, "the way we should do business more often in government."

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